


Pieces

by protectoroffaeries



Series: Looking Glass [2]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 19:31:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8339959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/protectoroffaeries/pseuds/protectoroffaeries
Summary: "I had the feeling deep in my gut that there'd been lines I should have spoken, gestures I should have made, that would have made things better. But looking back, I didn't know what they were." -Megan Crewe





	

**Author's Note:**

> This one is nowhere near as graphic as the last one, but there is still talk of self-harm and drug addiction.

Morgan sits down in the waiting room covered in Reid’s blood. No one pays much attention to him; the only other people around are nurses and the family members of other ER patients. Morgan is glad there's no one around asking him questions right now, although he knows there’ll be someone soon. He doesn't know how to answer them. He didn't know Reid had spiralled to the point of hurting himself. Honestly, Morgan had suspected that he'd start using again if he couldn't cope with the reality of Prentiss’ death. That would’ve been bad, too, but this… this is different. 

Morgan is certain that Prentiss’ death is Reid’s stressor, but he's not naïve enough to believe that it's the only thing Reid has been struggling with. He wonders if Reid was talking to Prentiss about whatever’s been troubling him - if that were the case, it'd only make her death harder on him. If that's possible. 

The sound of his cell phone buzzing pulls him out of his thoughts, and Morgan answers it without looking at the caller ID. “Morgan.” 

If it's Hotch announcing a case, Morgan’ll be forced to explain everything. Luckily for him and Reid, it's JJ.  _ “Hey, Morgan, I know it's late, but I was wondering if you heard from Spence. This is the first day he hasn't talked to me since… Emily…”  _

Morgan doesn't know where to begin. He thinks back to Reid’s apartment. His gored arm. The sticky blood stains. The unfathomable pain in his eyes. He doesn't want JJ to imagine Reid that way, broken, but she'll hear about eventually. 

“JJ, we're at the hospital,” he says.

_ “Oh my God. Has he…?”  _ She thinks he's relapsed.

“No. He cut himself, JJ.”

_ “He… how badly?” _

“His arm is a mess. It isn’t just typical slices on the wrist - he cut a line parallel to his artery, and I think he jabbed himself multiple times at random. He used a piece of broken glass,” Morgan says frankly, like he’s describing something an UNSUB did to a victim and not something Reid did to himself. 

_ “You don’t think he was trying to kill himself, do you?” _

“No, I don’t think so. He wouldn’t have missed the artery, there’s no damage to his right arm, and he called me to come and help him.”

_ “God, I thought he was coping better than this.” _

Morgan sighs. The last thing JJ needs to do is blame herself for not noticing the signs, if there were any. Morgan got the impression that Reid had surprised himself with intensity of his self-aimed attack. Nothing about it spoke to it being planned.  

“He's getting help now.”

There's a long pause on the other end of the line, broken up by the occasional sniffle. JJ is trying not to cry and failing, but certainly she has something else to say, or she would've hung up before the waterworks started. Morgan waits patiently - and he has a feeling he'll be in for a lot of that tonight.

_ “Morgan, about Emily...”  _ JJ says, and then she stops.  _ “I'll be there in ten minutes." _

“JJ-” But JJ has already ended the call. He sighs again and shoves his phone back into his pocket. The chair he's sitting in is stiff, and it's killing his back, so Morgan gets up and goes over to the vending machines. He's not thirsty, but he buys himself an overpriced bottle of water and takes a long drink of it. Nervous energy doesn't typically plague Morgan; the last time it'd reared its ugly head was when they were waiting on news about Prentiss. 

Suddenly, all Morgan can think is that he can't lose Reid, too.

He kicks the vending machine on a reflex, and the other people in the waiting room look at him with varying levels of annoyance and pity. He wonders if it's the blood on his clothes or his outburst that caused the second emotion, then decides he doesn't care.

“Son,” murmurs the elderly woman at the next vending machine. She doesn't look annoyed or pitying. She looks sad. 

“Sorry,” Morgan says.

“No, don't be,” she tells him. “Who’re you waiting for?”

Morgan doesn't want to talk about it, but the woman’s eyes reflect a kind of deep understanding that Morgan can't say he's seen before. It's almost as if that look compels him to reply. 

“My…” Morgan frowns.  _ Friend _ seems like an inadequate description of his relationship with Reid, which means that  _ coworker _ is more than inadequate. “My brother,” he settles on, but something feels off about that, too.

“What happened?” she asks soothingly, and Morgan tells her, he tells her everything - leaving out the FBI details - about Prentiss, about Reid. How they're his family. How he can't imagine life without them. 

When he's done talking, the elderly woman says nothing. She just folds him into a hug that surprises him. Her over-sized faux alligator purse hits his side. She reminds Morgan of his late grandmother, who was the rock that kept his family together after his father's murder. “I'll pray for him,” she promises. Before she can offer any other words of comfort, a nurse comes in and calls his name. The elderly woman motions for him to go. 

“Are you Derek Morgan?” the nurse asks, looking down at a clipboard. 

“Yeah, um, I brought in Spencer Reid.”

The nurse nods, scribbles something on the clipboard, and finally looks up at him. “Dr. Reid received fifty-six stitches and lost quite a bit of blood, so we’re replenishing his fluids. He’s refused painkillers, citing old drug problems. And since the wounds looked self-inflicted, we’ve restrained him. I would highly recommend you get him some good psychiatric help once he’s released… which should be within the next day.”

Morgan nods. “Can I see him?”

“Sure. I’ll take you to him.” Morgan follows the nurse through the winding, whitewashed halls of the hospital. A sterile scent covering the reek of misery and death fills these halls, and the smell gives Morgan a gross sense of foreboding that he quickly dismisses. 

The nurse stops in front of a plain brown door in a long line of plain brown doors. Room 166.  They must’ve moved him out of the emergency room to make space. “Here you go. Take care of that boy,” the nurse says, and then she’s off to help someone else, already flipping through pages on her clipboard. 

“Morgan,” Reid says, sitting up and scowling at the restraints on his arms when they restrict his movement. “Are these necessary?”

“You cut yourself up, pretty boy,” Morgan reminds him quietly. 

“Yes, I recall.”

Morgan sighs at his bitter tone, but he lets it go for now. “JJ’s on her way.”

"You called her?!”

“No. She called me. Reid, you need to calm down.”

Reid looks like he’s about to protest, but he decides not to say anything. Morgan takes a good look at him now - he’s still seems as pale and sickly as he was when Morgan first saw him, but there isn’t a drop of blood on his skin. There’s a thick bandage around his left arm that goes all the way to the seam of his elbow. He’s in a plain hospital gown, and he’s, as noted by the nurse before, cuffed to the sides of his bed. 

“I am calm.”

“You don’t look calm.”

“I know. I look insane and suicidal.”

“You look sick.”

“Are you going to tell Hotch about this?” asks Reid. It’s obvious he’s trying to change the subject - Morgan wonders if one of the doctors or nurses mentioned something to him about seeing a psychiatrist.

Morgan is saved from having to answer by the sudden appearance of JJ, who appears in the room in a flurry of  gray sweats - a sweatshirt and some sweatpants. Her hair’s been pulled back in a hasty ponytail. She has a wild look in her eye, and it settles on Reid, who she immediately runs over to. She wraps him in a hug, and Reid, to his credit, doesn’t protest. She lets go quickly, as if she just remembered his aversion to contact.

“What happened, Spence?”

“I’d tell you it was an accident, but I’m sure Morgan already told you otherwise.”

“You’d lie to me?”

Reid hums in affirmation. “You would be considerably less concerned about me if you thought I’d obtained my injuries unintentionally because then only my physical health would be questionable. However, in this case, my physical injuries are half of the problem, if that, and in fact, whatever is wrong with me mentality is probably more worrisome because it caused me to lash out violently, and the physical injuries are only an unintended side-effect of that violence.”

“Spence,” JJ says.

“Yes?”

“Don’t ever think about lying to me again.”

  
That causes Reid to smile, just a bit. Morgan knows it’ll be a long road full of twists and turns, but in that moment, he’s sure that they can help Reid get better. That he can help himself get better. And that’s good enough for tonight.


End file.
